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An outbreak of a never-before-seen coronavirus in the Chinese city of Wuhan dramatically worsened over the last few days—the case count has more than tripled, cases have appeared in new cities, and authorities have confirmed that the virus is spreading person to person.

Further Reading

The World Health Organization announced Monday that it will convene an emergency meeting on Wednesday, January 22, to assess the outbreak and how best to manage it

On Saturday, January 18, the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission reported 136 newly identified cases of the viral pneumonia and one additional death. On Tuesday, January 21 (local time 4:18am), the commission reported another death. That brings Wuhan’s totals to 198 cases and four deaths. Just one day earlier, on January 17, the health commission had reported just 62 cases and two deaths.

The outbreak began in December there and has been linked to a live-animal market in Wuhan called the South China Seafood Wholesale Market. Researchers raced to identify the virus behind the outbreak, confirming quickly that the culprit is a never-before-seen coronavirus—a relative of the virus that caused the SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) outbreak in 2003. Like SARS, experts suspect that the new coronavirus leapt from animals at the market to humans, sparking the outbreak. Many strains of coronavirus circulate in animals and humans, causing mild to severe diseases.

But until this weekend, there were reasons to be optimistic that the new outbreak could be easily managed. Officials in Wuhan quickly shut down the live animal market January 1 for decontamination. On January 11, the health commission reported 41 confirmed cases, most of which had clear ties to the market, and there was no clear evidence that the virus was spreading from human to human. No medical staff had been infected, and there had been no sign of new cases since January 3.

That has all changed. As the case tally shot up over the last few days, officials say that there is clear evidence that the virus is spreading from person to person, and at least 14 medical staff members contracted the virus.

Booming bug

“Now we can say it is certain that it is a human-to-human transmission phenomenon,” SARS expert Zhong Nanshan said on state-run television on Monday, according to The New York Times. Zhong is leading a government-appointed expert panel on the outbreak.

Further Reading

Zhong elaborated that there was at least one case of human-to-human transmission in Wuhan, a city in central China, and two cases in families in the southern Guangdong province that borders Hong Kong. He also said that in one case, a single patient spread the virus to at least 14 medical staff members. He referred to such a patient as a “super-spreader,” according to South China Morning Post, and called these patients key to controlling the outbreak.

“We expect the number of infected cases will increase over the Lunar New Year travel period, and we need to prevent the emergence of a super-spreader of the virus,” Zhong said. Millions are expected to travel during the holiday period.

Besides Wuhan and Guangdong in mainland China, Chinese health officials have now reported cases in Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen. The total number of cases overall in China has climbed to 218, according to state-run media.

Hong Kong has reported many suspected cases, but none have been confirmed to be linked to the outbreak. The region was hard hit by the 2003 SARS outbreak, which sickened over 8,000 people worldwide and killed 774.

Officials in Hong Kong and many other places have stepped up monitoring and are screening travelers. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has already announced that it is closely monitoring the outbreak and will screen travelers from Wuhan.

The main symptoms of the virus are fever, cough, chest tightness, and difficulty breathing.

1.3 billion people, mostly crammed along the eastern portion of the country, a totalitarian government that keeps information locked down, and hundreds of millions of people on the move for the impending Lunar New Year.

I still don't understand how an air-transmitted virus could be transmissible from animals to humans but not between humans.

Much of it depends upon the infection. With the bird flu, once it has transmitted from a bird to a human, the virus is in a position to more readily infect others. Birds don't sneeze on people nearly as much as people do.

I'm assuming it was transmitted by air or touch. That hundreds of people were bitten within a short span of time seems unlikely.

Depends on the nature of the infection..... #zombielife

/seriously though, good luck China.

This is an interesting question. Sometimes a properly infective virion can't quite be made by human respiratory tract cells, leading to what is sometimes called a "dead end host". This is often because the virus actually uses components of the host cells in the replication/infection process. One of the other possibilities is that it's an aerosolized virus that isn't actually a standard respiratory virus. Aerosolization can occur when mechanical tools (saws ect) are used on animal tissue.

1.3 billion people, mostly crammed along the eastern portion of the country, a totalitarian government that keeps information locked down, and hundreds of millions of people on the move for the impending Lunar New Year.

The main symptoms of the virus are fever, cough, chest tightness, and difficulty breathing.

Aren't these the same symptoms you get by just walking around outside most cities in China due to the pollution?

On a serious note though, this story reads how the next pandemic will occur. Worrisome.

I grow more skeptical by the day of this "global pandemic" risk that people keep being so alarmist about. The last one, the Spanish Flu, originated in an era before hand washing was considered best practice. Nevermind that also have Tamiflu, penicillin, N95 face masks, Lysol, and modern quarantine/communication protocols.

Given a virus with a sufficiently long incubation period where transmissibility is reached well prior to emergence of symptoms, a global pandemic is still very possible. One thing we have today that didn't exist a century ago: global travelers in the millions, who can hop across continents within mere hours...

Given a virus with a sufficiently long incubation period where transmissibility is reached well prior to emergence of symptoms, a global pandemic is still very possible. One thing we have today that didn't exist a century ago: global travelers in the millions, who can hop across continents within mere hours...

And when early symptoms are non-specific - like fever and cough, what are you going to do? Quarantine everyone with a cough?

The main symptoms of the virus are fever, cough, chest tightness, and difficulty breathing.

Aren't these the same symptoms you get by just walking around outside most cities in China due to the pollution?

On a serious note though, this story reads how the next pandemic will occur. Worrisome.

I grow more skeptical by the day of this "global pandemic" risk that people keep being so alarmist about. The last one, the Spanish Flu, originated in an era before hand washing was considered best practice. Nevermind that also have Tamiflu, penicillin, N95 face masks, Lysol, and modern quarantine/communication protocols.

There have been more than 30 million HIV deaths worldwide in the last 40 years. For the first 15 years of the epidemic (before ARV treatments were developed), contracting the disease (which is easily preventable, remember) was a quick death sentence, and that's still true in many places in the world. For example, Uganda saw 23,000 AIDS deaths last year. It's not all rainbows and puppies out there.

The main symptoms of the virus are fever, cough, chest tightness, and difficulty breathing.

Aren't these the same symptoms you get by just walking around outside most cities in China due to the pollution?

On a serious note though, this story reads how the next pandemic will occur. Worrisome.

I grow more skeptical by the day of this "global pandemic" risk that people keep being so alarmist about. The last one, the Spanish Flu, originated in an era before hand washing was considered best practice. Nevermind that also have Tamiflu, penicillin, N95 face masks, Lysol, and modern quarantine/communication protocols.

Given a virus with a sufficiently long incubation period where transmissibility is reached well prior to emergence of symptoms, a global pandemic is still very possible. One thing we have today that didn't exist a century ago: global travelers in the millions, who can hop across continents within mere hours...

And yet, every single highly contagious disease that's hopped continents and onto front pages still hits an order of magnitude (or 3 or 4) fewer victims and deaths than the perennial assaults by rhinovirus and influenza.

After hearing about isolated cases in Hong Kong and Taiwan, I figured it was already spreading in Central China, and it was likely spread person to person, and the Chinese were trying to keep Wuhan open (since it's a major transportation hub for China).

I don't know that they're any better at containing these things (and I don't know that I'd blame them for not being better, because these things in a dense urban environment are almost impossible to "contain" even if one is trying to), but they should have been much more forthcoming about the issue before this.

Like the fact Iran shot down the Ukrainian airliner, it got to the point where the Chinese couldn't keep it a secret anymore. Call it the other shoe dropping.

Personally, I don't think they learn a damned thing from the SARS issue, since they did exactly the same thing again. The Chinese government is not very good at learning from its mistakes.

I only hope this doesn't get out of control, but the problem with this particular kind of whack-a-mole game is that the moles are invisible until someone gets sick, and you don't know how many others were taken ill by the same mole.

And yet, every single highly contagious disease that's hopped continents and onto front pages still hits an order of magnitude (or 3 or 4) fewer victims and deaths than the perennial assaults by rhinovirus and influenza.

Which are still viruses. Maybe we should calm down a little about the threats that don't yet exist - but we do have examples of viruses that kill many people and can't be eliminated, even over the years.

And yet, every single highly contagious disease that's hopped continents and onto front pages still hits an order of magnitude (or 3 or 4) fewer victims and deaths than the perennial assaults by rhinovirus and influenza.

Which are still viruses. Maybe we should calm down a little about the threats that don't yet exist - but we do have examples of viruses that kill many people and can't be eliminated, even over the years.

We haven't seen an outbreak like the Spanish Flu ever since we figured out how to actually apply germ theory effectively. The only places we've seen these massive casualties and persistent threats are stuff like ebola and HIV, because the outbreaks happened in populations with very poor sanitation and/or customs that benefited the disease.

The main symptoms of the virus are fever, cough, chest tightness, and difficulty breathing.

Aren't these the same symptoms you get by just walking around outside most cities in China due to the pollution?

On a serious note though, this story reads how the next pandemic will occur. Worrisome.

I grow more skeptical by the day of this "global pandemic" risk that people keep being so alarmist about. The last one, the Spanish Flu, originated in an era before hand washing was considered best practice. Nevermind that also have Tamiflu, penicillin, N95 face masks, Lysol, and modern quarantine/communication protocols.

There have been more than 30 million HIV deaths worldwide in the last 40 years. For the first 15 years of the epidemic (before ARV treatments were developed), contracting the disease (which is easily preventable, remember) was a quick death sentence, and that's still true in many places in the world. For example, Uganda saw 23,000 AIDS deaths last year. It's not all rainbows and puppies out there.

I'm talking borderline apocalyptic alarmism that comes from certain groups obsessed with the potential for it to spread via air travel. We've had modern air travel for the better part of a century at this point. Still no pandemic, so far, or anything even remotely close.

Yeah, but that is also the timeline of the most effective sanitation and vaccination efforts...

And a very short time-frame biologically speaking. It certainly WILL happen at some point, if you have any faith in the ability of DNA to mutate.

The main symptoms of the virus are fever, cough, chest tightness, and difficulty breathing.

Aren't these the same symptoms you get by just walking around outside most cities in China due to the pollution?

On a serious note though, this story reads how the next pandemic will occur. Worrisome.

I grow more skeptical by the day of this "global pandemic" risk that people keep being so alarmist about. The last one, the Spanish Flu, originated in an era before hand washing was considered best practice. Nevermind that also have Tamiflu, penicillin, N95 face masks, Lysol, and modern quarantine/communication protocols.

Given a virus with a sufficiently long incubation period where transmissibility is reached well prior to emergence of symptoms, a global pandemic is still very possible. One thing we have today that didn't exist a century ago: global travelers in the millions, who can hop across continents within mere hours...

And yet, every single highly contagious disease that's hopped continents and onto front pages still hits an order of magnitude (or 3 or 4) fewer victims and deaths than the perennial assaults by rhinovirus and influenza.

Influenza kills 3 to 4 orders of magnitude more people every single year than most new diseases bought up by media even infects. Still there is a well-known risk of a new super flu, so better report and be ready.

The main symptoms of the virus are fever, cough, chest tightness, and difficulty breathing.

Aren't these the same symptoms you get by just walking around outside most cities in China due to the pollution?

On a serious note though, this story reads how the next pandemic will occur. Worrisome.

I grow more skeptical by the day of this "global pandemic" risk that people keep being so alarmist about. The last one, the Spanish Flu, originated in an era before hand washing was considered best practice. Nevermind that also have Tamiflu, penicillin, N95 face masks, Lysol, and modern quarantine/communication protocols.

Given a virus with a sufficiently long incubation period where transmissibility is reached well prior to emergence of symptoms, a global pandemic is still very possible. One thing we have today that didn't exist a century ago: global travelers in the millions, who can hop across continents within mere hours...

Between 1917 and 1918 2.3 million American Soldiers crossed the Atlantic and returned in 1919. WW1 included 420,000 Canadians, 520,000 from Australia and New Zealand, 1 million from the Indian subcontinent and 135,000 Africans soldiers. A further 3 million civilians from India, China and Africa served in logistical and rear area construction.

The main symptoms of the virus are fever, cough, chest tightness, and difficulty breathing.

Aren't these the same symptoms you get by just walking around outside most cities in China due to the pollution?

On a serious note though, this story reads how the next pandemic will occur. Worrisome.

I grow more skeptical by the day of this "global pandemic" risk that people keep being so alarmist about. The last one, the Spanish Flu, originated in an era before hand washing was considered best practice. Nevermind that also have Tamiflu, penicillin, N95 face masks, Lysol, and modern quarantine/communication protocols.

Given a virus with a sufficiently long incubation period where transmissibility is reached well prior to emergence of symptoms, a global pandemic is still very possible. One thing we have today that didn't exist a century ago: global travelers in the millions, who can hop across continents within mere hours...

Between 1917 and 1918 2.3 million American Soldiers crossed the Atlantic and returned in 1919. WW1 included 420,000 Canadians, 520,000 from Australia and New Zealand, 1 million from the Indian subcontinent and 135,000 Africans soldiers. A further 3 million civilians from India, China and Africa served in logistical and rear area construction.

The main symptoms of the virus are fever, cough, chest tightness, and difficulty breathing.

Aren't these the same symptoms you get by just walking around outside most cities in China due to the pollution?

On a serious note though, this story reads how the next pandemic will occur. Worrisome.

I grow more skeptical by the day of this "global pandemic" risk that people keep being so alarmist about. The last one, the Spanish Flu, originated in an era before hand washing was considered best practice. Nevermind that also have Tamiflu, penicillin, N95 face masks, Lysol, and modern quarantine/communication protocols.

There have been more than 30 million HIV deaths worldwide in the last 40 years. For the first 15 years of the epidemic (before ARV treatments were developed), contracting the disease (which is easily preventable, remember) was a quick death sentence, and that's still true in many places in the world. For example, Uganda saw 23,000 AIDS deaths last year. It's not all rainbows and puppies out there.

I'm talking borderline apocalyptic alarmism that comes from certain groups obsessed with the potential for it to spread via air travel. We've had modern air travel for the better part of a century at this point. Still no pandemic, so far, or anything even remotely close.

I'll stipulate that.

It's much easier to contain the spread when it's contained in flying sardine cans by quarantining the sardines. But one has to know that the sardines are sick in the first place. In all cases to date, the transmission of the disease (like Ebola) is actually rather difficult for people in a modern society.

The WHO is rather concerned about Disease X, which is still a very viable possibility. All it takes is one highly contagious disease with a long enough incubation rate to remain symptom free, but contagious, and a subsequently high mortality rate to do it. That's what gives WHO officials gray hair, because with diseases, it's really not so much a question of if, but of when.

So, Disease X in a country that either doesn't know it's happening until it's too late, or lets it get out of hand before telling the world, can actually kill off the Human Race (assuming a high enough mortality and a few other things like being able to survive outside for a prolonged period of time, etc.). The stuff of sci-fi is often based on reality.

Imagine a prion disease that infects animals at a very slow rate, taking years before symptoms develop, that's able to be passed on sexually. Consumption of prion-infected meat products can result in infection. It will also readily pass through the placenta and infect the children of those already infected (but don't know it).

I wrote a book based on that idea (a by-product of climate change, actually), so if you want nightmare scenarios, don't think it can't happen. The nightmare is having the attitude it can't happen, and then it does.

And yet, every single highly contagious disease that's hopped continents and onto front pages still hits an order of magnitude (or 3 or 4) fewer victims and deaths than the perennial assaults by rhinovirus and influenza.

Which are still viruses. Maybe we should calm down a little about the threats that don't yet exist - but we do have examples of viruses that kill many people and can't be eliminated, even over the years.

We haven't seen an outbreak like the Spanish Flu ever since we figured out how to actually apply germ theory effectively. The only places we've seen these massive casualties and persistent threats are stuff like ebola and HIV, because the outbreaks happened in populations with very poor sanitation and/or customs that benefited the disease.

Since we can't stop "regular" flu from spreading, we would be equally helpless against any newly emergent super-flu. As for Ebola/Marburg and HIV, I'll just note that these at least haven't (so far) been transmissible trough the air. Air-transmissible viruses are the biggest threat, where potential for a pandemic is concerned.

The main symptoms of the virus are fever, cough, chest tightness, and difficulty breathing.

Aren't these the same symptoms you get by just walking around outside most cities in China due to the pollution?

On a serious note though, this story reads how the next pandemic will occur. Worrisome.

I grow more skeptical by the day of this "global pandemic" risk that people keep being so alarmist about. The last one, the Spanish Flu, originated in an era before hand washing was considered best practice. Nevermind that also have Tamiflu, penicillin, N95 face masks, Lysol, and modern quarantine/communication protocols.

Given a virus with a sufficiently long incubation period where transmissibility is reached well prior to emergence of symptoms, a global pandemic is still very possible. One thing we have today that didn't exist a century ago: global travelers in the millions, who can hop across continents within mere hours...

Between 1917 and 1918 2.3 million American Soldiers crossed the Atlantic and returned in 1919. WW1 included 420,000 Canadians, 520,000 from Australia and New Zealand, 1 million from the Indian subcontinent and 135,000 Africans soldiers. A further 3 million civilians from India, China and Africa served in logistical and rear area construction.

And it took weeks, if not months, to make those trips...

So what, the ships still docked and soldiers got off carrying the Spanish flu. Hint it's called a global pandemic for a reason.

In general, there was a LOT of infrastructure and technology to manage these threats that we didn't have, and since invented because of those experiences. Not to mention our ability to provide palliative care critical to surviving the flu has improved by a factor of probably 10x or more.

Can the hospitals actually cope with extra thousands of infected people? That might be the issue - quantity, not quality.

The main symptoms of the virus are fever, cough, chest tightness, and difficulty breathing.

Aren't these the same symptoms you get by just walking around outside most cities in China due to the pollution?

On a serious note though, this story reads how the next pandemic will occur. Worrisome.

I grow more skeptical by the day of this "global pandemic" risk that people keep being so alarmist about. The last one, the Spanish Flu, originated in an era before hand washing was considered best practice. Nevermind that also have Tamiflu, penicillin, N95 face masks, Lysol, and modern quarantine/communication protocols.

There have been more than 30 million HIV deaths worldwide in the last 40 years. For the first 15 years of the epidemic (before ARV treatments were developed), contracting the disease (which is easily preventable, remember) was a quick death sentence, and that's still true in many places in the world. For example, Uganda saw 23,000 AIDS deaths last year. It's not all rainbows and puppies out there.

I'm talking borderline apocalyptic alarmism that comes from certain groups obsessed with the potential for it to spread via air travel. We've had modern air travel for the better part of a century at this point. Still no pandemic, so far, or anything even remotely close.

No, we've definitely had pandemics. People just don't understand what the word "pandemic" means, which is where the alarmism comes from.

As an example, we had a flu pandemic with H1N1 in 2009. According to the CDC, it saw nearly 61 million cases in the US alone from April 2009 to April 2010. It just wasn't what most people think of as a pandemic, because the vast majority of people who caught it weren't seriously impacted by it. A small portion of them were hospitalized, and a tiny one died. I think it's fair to assume that most pandemics nowadays would look about the same.

That said, we still shouldn't ignore these sorts of outbreaks. Most people who caught H1N1 didn't die, but some of them did. These disease still kill people, and we still need to do what we can to stop them from spreading. It's just that freaking out and worrying that the world is going end isn't an appropriate response. If you're really concerned then the best thing you can do is probably just the same as what you should be doing anyways: wash your hands, cough into your sleeve, don't touch your face, and so on.